The animal-rights group said it has asked the Platte County Sheriff’s Office in Wyoming to launch a criminal investigation. A woman at the Sheriff’s Office said nobody was available to comment on the case.

An unidentified Humane Society employee surreptitiously recorded the video and photographic images while temporarily working at Wyoming Premium Farms.

“There’s no way to condone abuse of animals,” said Jim Herlihy, a spokesman for the Denver-based U.S. Meat Export Federation. “Our sense is this is not representative of how animals are being treated in U.S. farms.”

Herlihy added there is not a consensus in the industry on the propriety of keeping animals in gestation crates.

The Humane Society alleged that Wyoming Premium Farms is a supplier to Tyson Foods. Tyson responded that it buys some sows from the farm but does not process them for pork.

“We do have a small, but separate hog-buying business that buys aged sows,” the company said in a statement on its website. “These animals are subsequently sold to other companies and are not used in Tyson’s pork-processing business.”

The owners of Boulder’s Sterling University Peaks apartments, who this summer were cited for illegally subdividing 92 bedrooms in the complex, have reached an agreement to settle the case for $410,000, the city announced Thursday.